Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Undoing the Damage Done by Urban Freeways

The effort to remove or re-purpose existing freeways and heal the wounds they inflicted on cities continues with the near completion of park Madrid Rio in Madrid, Spain. Madrid Rio sits atop a six-mile stretch of tunnels that now house the old M-30 Freeway.

"All around the world, highways are being torn down and waterfronts reclaimed; decades of thinking about cars and cities reversed; new public spaces created."

New York City master planner Robert Moses famously drove freeways right through neighborhoods until urban activist Jane Jacobs stood up to him. Now, one of his creations, the Sheridan Expressway through the South Bronx, is closer to being torn down.